The Mystery of the Emeralds

with the little tamper and light it. I was more interested in watching this ritual than in hearing about a war I wasn’t old enough to understand. I vaguely recall, however, his telling me about slaves coming to this house for refuge and being hidden during the day and going away secretly at night, and I seem to remember one in particular who was nursed by my great-grandmother when he fell ill.”
    “Do you know what happened to him?” Brian asked.
    “I don’t remember,” Mr. Belden answered, frowning as he tried to recall the end of the story. “Maybe it’ll come back to me later. It all happened before my great-grandfather went off to the Civil War.”
    Trixie was fascinated. Crabapple Farm must have been a stop on the Underground Railroad! She spent the rest of the evening looking among her father’s books for any that might have something on the subject. One of them described the system in some detail—how the houses where people were hidden were called “stations,” the various routes were called “lines,” and those who were passed along were referred to as “packages” or “freight.” Trixie remembered the use of the word “lines” in the letter she had found and how the writer had put it in quotation marks. Surely, Trixie thought to herself, she must have meant that Rufus was being sent north along the Underground. She decided to go the next morning to the Sleepyside library. Maybe there she could find something more about the actual routes and discover if any ran up the Hudson Valley. She called Honey and Di to tell them about her father’s half-remembered story and to ask them to go with her. Di couldn’t because she had to go to New York with her mother, but Honey was free, and they made a date to meet at ten the following day.

    Trixie had just finished helping her mother with the dusting next morning, when she heard Honey at their back door.
    “Am I ever glad to see you—and fifteen minutes early, too!” Trixie exclaimed, coming out on the porch and shaking the dustcloth with savage vigor. “I hate dishwashing, I hate to make beds, and, most of all, I hate to dust!”
    “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that, is it, Trix?” Honey asked.
    “Not really, I guess,” Trixie sighed. “It’s just that it seems to interfere with my ‘detecating,’ as Bobby would say.”
    “Well, hurry up and take off that silly apron. It doesn’t make you look one bit more domestic.” Honey laughed, pulling at the tie.
    As the two friends rode off toward town on their bikes, Trixie suddenly asked, “Do you know anyone in Croton-on-Hudson, Honey?”
    “No,” Honey replied. “The only time I’ve ever been there was when Sleepyside played basketball with them last year and Jim took me along. Why?”
    “Oh, I was just thinking about Mrs. Sunderland, to whom that letter was addressed. Do you suppose there are any Sunderlands left who still live anywhere near there?” Trixie mused.
    “You know, the telephone book stood us in good stead when we were looking for Mrs. Hall down at Cobbett’s Island. Have you thought of trying it again?” Honey asked.
    “I’m afraid it’s such an obvious thing to do that I just plain didn’t think of it, dear partner.” Trixie laughed. “Let’s look as soon as we get to Mr. Lytell’s store. But,” she warned, “try to act perfectly natural when we go in, and don’t discuss anything until we get outside. Bemember how snoopy he was when Jim was hiding out in the old Mansion.”
    Fortunately, Mr. Lytell was waiting on a customer when the girls entered, and they went to the back of the store, where the telephone directories were chained to the wall. Mr. Lytell wasn’t going to run the risk of anyone’s stealing them, even though they were not really his property.
    Trixie, trying to look casual, thumbed through the book until she came to the S’s. There was only one Sunderland in Croton, a Miss Julie, living on Revolutionary Road. Trixie pointed it out to Honey, and then, seeing Mr. Lytell looking at them over his glasses, she went into the booth and pretended to make a call.
    “Phone out of order up at your house?” the old gentleman asked Trixie as she and Honey came up to the front of the store a few minutes later.
    “No, Mr. Lytell, there’s nothing at all wrong with it,” Trixie answered with a saccharine smile. Then she and Honey went out, leaving Mr. Lytell’s curiosity completely unsatisfied.
    “You’re improving, Trixie. You know, you